The American College and the Culture of Aspiration, 1915-1940 - by David O Levine (Paperback)

About the Book

The first in-depth history of higher education during the era in which colleges and universities became arbiters of social and economic mobility.

Book Synopsis

Is higher education a right or a privilege? Who should go to college? What should they study there? These questions were hotly debated between the world wars, when an unprecedented boom in college enrollments forced Americans to struggle between their belief in the importance of educational opportunity and their desire to preserve the existing social structure. In The American College and the Culture of Aspiration, 1915-1940, David O. Levine offers the first in-depth history of higher education during this era, a period when colleges and universities became arbiters of social and economic mobility and a hierarchy of schools evolved to meet growing demands for occupational training and socialization.

Review Quotes

For anyone interested in the history and future of American post-secondary education, this book offers an insightful foundation for understanding the competing tides of stability and change that have marked post-World War II higher education. It will inform both policymakers and historians about an overlooked, yet critical period in the uneasy evolution of American higher education institutions.

In a narrative that is intelligently presented, well organized, and swarming with information on a subject that deserves the attention given to it, the author skillfully describes how conservatives mouthed the platitudes of a liberal, democratic ethos of opportunity--the American Dream--and then acted effectively to delimit and structure the consequences.

Levine's book is a major achievement-one of the essential half-dozen volumes in the history of higher education in America.

About the Author

David O. Levine teaches history at the University of California, Los Angeles.